Choosing a Major

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I hope my readers don't think I'm acting beyond my mandate if I offer a few suggestions about choosing a major.  This is for college students; others should leave this page at once.

It might be a bit too annoying if I were to give detailed reasons, but I'm going to give you a peep into my thinking anyway.  The world is too full of people giving instructions with very little supporting arguments.

1.  You must pick a major you're interested in.  Sure, you have to find a job, but if you can't stand a subject, you will be miserable for several decades.  Select one of your two most favorite subjects.  If you have to be practical, you can go with the one that promises more employment opportunities.

2.  Make sure you take your writing courses and your math courses seriously.  You could have a major in basket weaving, but your writing ability and your ability to do double-entry book-keeping might get you a job, especially if this employer can't afford a fully-qualified accountant.  Being able to use MS Word and MS Excel are also good for employment.  Your major is not the only thing that matters.

3.  In these times when everybody is going to grad school (this might be news to you, but college degrees are becoming commonplace), you must keep an eye on possible graduate school "majors".  In theory, you can go to grad school in (say) Economics, even if your undergrad degree is in History.  But in practice, Economics graduate schools tend to think that an undergraduate degree in Mathematics or Engineering is a better preparation for an Economics graduate degree.  On the other hand, your undergraduate major might not be a deterrent for a graduate degree in Music, for instance.  But you must have a solid background in music theory and performance.  I guess I'm saying: keep graduate school in the back of your mind.

4.  As I have often said, statistics (Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Government) show that people change occupations, and even career areas, on the average of three times in a lifetime.  You may start off in a job in Marketing (though your major was Art), and end up working for a non-profit.  My wife got an undergraduate degree in Archeology and History, but her first full-time job was as a writer for an Engineering journal, and now she is a grant writer for the county government.  If you're good, you could get hired to do a tricky job no matter what your undergraduate major was.

5.  You can declare and un-declare your major a couple of times; nobody is going to insist that you stay with your original choice.  Keep taking courses in all the areas you're interested in, so that you keep your options open.

6.  If you want to make money, don't go into teaching.  Well-meaning friends may urge you to go into teaching, because "You would make such an awesome teacher!"  But you would be a miserable awesome teacher who can't pay her bills.  Until the situation changes and our culture begins to take teachers more seriously, hassle them a lot less, and pays them a lot better, the nation is going to have to make do with teachers who go into the profession because they can't make more money elsewhere.  On the other hand, if you're a Mother Theresa in the making, by all means teach.  Or teach, and moonlight as a tax accountant.  And get a bullet-proof vest, because who knows?

To conclude, a major (in the theory of tertiary education that holds sway at the moment) is an area into which a college student goes in some depth.  Your general education courses provide breadth.  The idea of college is not to make you more employable in terms of your subject knowledge (though, inevitably, that does happen), but rather because your college experience should have given you a better perspective on life, culture, and the world, than most people without a college experience.  This is valuable to many employers.  (Unfortunately, many of your college-mates have been able to go through college without an iota's change in their perspective.  They have to somehow keep that fact hidden from more perceptive employers.)  The general education courses give you that perspective, and your major trains you into thinking deeply about at least one subject.  Some people find it difficult to think deeply about anything, and these people should not be in college.  So pick a major in a subject you like sufficiently well that you aren't afraid of going into it in depth.  Remember, if you're a sophomore now, you might be quite a different person by the time you need to go into your major in depth, and you might not be as scared of intellectual stuff at that point.

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AN EXTENDED FAREWELL TO OUR GRADUATES!

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Every year I feel ever more impatient to give our departing graduates a jolly good word or two of advice, but I never get the chance, what with Finals, and grading, and all the parties, ahem.  This time I’m really going to do it.
Most students –and their parents—see a college education as a gateway to better employment: a nice, easy, well-paying job.  (Actually, jobs for college graduates are not going to be easy, except for the exceptional graduate.  They usually involve less heavy lifting; that much can be said.)
And now you’re expecting me to give you the usual drivel concerning what a college education is all about.  But you will be disappointed; I’m going to give you that drivel at the end.
The Elephant in the Room, of course, is the fact that you’re going to be looking for jobs, so let’s get that out of the way, before your attention starts to wander.
Some of you are thinking: well, I like to … watch TV, hang out with my friends, party on the weekends, play video games, and listen to loud music.  These are personality traits that have to be carefully concealed from your prospective employer, you’re thinking, so the entire job-seeking process becomes very tense and uncomfortable.
Nobody wants to hire a tense and uncomfortable job applicant.  This is no way to go about presenting yourself.
But, imagine what you could be thinking instead.
You’re a person who wants people to get a fair deal.  You want to work reasonable hours for reasonable pay.  You feel you can do as good a job on any task as anyone else they can hire, and dammit, people like you.   But, seriously, you’re more interested in making a good match between what your employer has to offer and what his customers need, than in making a shady buck for your employer at the cost of an unhappy customer.  You want to become a good parent to your kids, and a good spouse, and a good alum of your school.  This means, you have to take on responsibility, and discharge it reliably, and be in a position to hire more alums some day!
If they hire you, good for them.  If they don’t, they will learn their mistake, and begin to realize what an opportunity they let slip through their fingers.  (So leave your e-mail addie with them, in case they need you desperately someday.)
As some of you know —or suspect—I teach mathematics.  When I say this, I can just imagine what goes through people’s minds.  Actually, it could be a number of different things, depending.
“Mathematics!  Fractions!  Eugh!”
“Mathematics!  Pi!  Wow, you must be a god!”
“Mathematics!  I guess that would be, like, Accounting …  You must be good at doing your taxes.”
“Mathematics!  Like, Statistics?”
(Actually, most people think of mathematics as multiplication.  They wouldn’t come out and actually say this, but that’s what they’re thinking.)
Most of you are not as afraid of math now as you might have been at one time.  There comes a point when you look around, and see how much more afraid of math everybody else is than you are.  This is usually a turning point.
There is a sort of conceptual fence you jump over; one day you’re accustomed to thinking of yourself as a math-phobe, and the next, you’re thinking: well, yeah; it certainly is unpleasant, but not fearful, no.  And your entire attitude towards it changes.  As you go higher up in math, it happens at different levels: Calculus, Trigonometry … all things that people start out hating, and the lucky ones cross the fence, and laugh at themselves for having feared it.
There are these fences you have to cross: from being single to being married; from being a student to being a teacher; from being a youth, to being a parent!
You’re probably thinking: this guy is a total math maniac.  Yes, I’m kind of a math geek; and I wear it proudly!  (I’m other sorts of geek, too; but I’m not quite ready to be outed at this point.)  But all the people who sit on the platform at graduation, certainly at my institution, are absolutely convinced about the value and the fascination of their chosen field, and, very probably, of those of a number of other fields as well.
To be this way, to be so insanely enthusiastic about a discipline, is to be totally persuaded about civilization, about human achievement, about the good parts of human history.  And the fact that we chose to teach tells you that we believe in the future.  We wanted to infect you with this disease, and this is why you should be an asset to any employer who cares about his community.  It is never a good time to hire an employee who looks at civilization with doubt and despair.  We want you to cross the fence from the side of the people who just don’t get civilization, to the side of people who may not understand it, but who are in awe of its amazing achievements.
You can also write.  You can do math.  You can appreciate art, music, and dance.  You can read and understand books.  You can surf the net on your employer’s behalf!  You are an amazing value to your prospective employer. 
We sincerely enjoyed having you with us for this long.  Honestly, we probably enjoyed having you here more than your parents enjoyed having you at home; why else would they send you off to a residential college?  We love to have you come back!  Of course we sometimes tend to hide when you descend on the school en masse, but that’s different!  We have seen you at your best so far, and your worst, and we still like you, but the best is yet to come.
Good luck!